Protecting His Windflower (A Spirit Hunters Series Novel Book 1) by Temperance Dawn (best ereader for epub TXT) 📗

each hand, Liam found Emily still sitting on the sofa where he had left her in the living room. With fingers frantically moving across the screen of her phone, Liam assumed she was texting Lexi to let her know what had just happened. “Em? I’m having my team head over here right now.”

Not looking up at him, her knuckles white from gripping the phone so tightly. She acknowledged his statement by saying, “Okay.”

Liam placed the glasses down on the coffee table and sat down next to her. “Are you texting Lexi?”

“Yes. She’s freaking out because I’m freaking out. Now, I’m trying to calm her down.”

“Why don’t you call her? She’ll feel better if she hears your voice.”

Emily nodded in agreement before sending off one last text message. Three seconds later, her phone rang. Emily sat and talked to Lexi, doing her best to reassure her she was okay. A minute later, Emily held the phone out to Liam. “She wants to talk to you.”

Liam took the phone. “Hello, Lexi?”

“Is Em really okay? She doesn’t sound okay.”

“She is physically just fine. Emotionally, right now, she’s shaken up, as am I.”

“Don’t leave her alone,” Lexi stated. Liam stole a glance in Emily’s direction. She rested her head against the back of the sofa. Her eyes were closed as she breathed deeply. “She will kill me for telling you this, but she has anxiety. She’s in a new place that is haunted. I’m not there to help comfort her. I don’t want her to have a panic attack while alone.”

Listening to Lexi’s concern for her friend was sweet. It reminded Liam of his friendship with Trey and Luke. They looked out for one another.

“You don’t have to worry about that, Lexi. I wasn’t going to.”

He heard Lexi breathe a sharp sigh of relief. “Okay. Good. I can’t believe this is happening to her. She’s never had to deal with anything on this level before.”

“What do you mean?” Liam calmly interrupted and lowered his voice.

Lexi was silent for a moment. Liam heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end. “I’ll let her tell you.”

Liam kept his gaze on Emily. Had she been dealing with a haunting prior to moving to San Francisco? He had seen what stress of hauntings could do to a person. Victims normally tried to go about their lives and ignore the activity taking place around them, until it became too much. Most people only called in help once they had reached their breaking point. There was no way he was letting that happen to Emily. “We are going to find out what is going on. She won’t be here alone until we get rid of this thing. My friends and teammates are on their way over right now.”

“Alright. I know you like Em. And she’s going to kill me for saying this too, but I think it needs to be said. She likes you. A lot.” Liam’s heart jumped into his throat at Lexi’s statement. Knowing that Emily had spoken to her best friend about him and confessed her attraction to him made his own knees weak. “She’s had bad luck with guys. Don’t add yourself to that list, okay?”

“I understand, Lexi. I’m on the same page, believe me. My team will be here shortly. I need to talk to them. Don’t worry about Em. I’ll take care of her. And I will make sure she calls you first thing in the morning.”

At that, he and Lexi said their goodbyes, and he hung up. He set Emily’s phone down. She had drawn her legs up, hugging them to her chest and head buried in her knees.

He sat on the wooden coffee table, positioned himself in front of her, leaned in, and pulled her close. Emily dropped her feet so they rested on the floor and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her head rested on his shoulder. Liam hugged her tightly, and fuck if his heart didn’t skip a beat at the sensation of her body pressed against his. “I poured us both some wine.”

“Thank you,” Emily said as she lifted her head.

“Here you go.” Liam let her go and handed a glass to her. “It will take my friends a little while to get here.” He held his own glass in his hand and stared at Emily as she took a sip of the golden liquid. “Will you tell me the passcode to your phone?”

Emily stared at him in confusion.

“Lexi is someone who you care about. And she cares about you. I want to make sure I can contact her in case you can’t for any reason.”

“That’s sweet of you,” Emily told him and gave him the six-digit code to access her phone. She took another sip of wine and smiled at him over the rim of her glass. “Tell me, how did you get into paranormal investigating?”

Looking at his glass, Liam took a breath. “Well, now that’s an interesting story.”

“Good. I like interesting stories,” she said as she tipped her glass to her lips, taking another delicate taste of the wine.

Smiling at her, Liam took one of her hands in his. He wanted to feel her warmth while he explained the reasons behind his infatuation with Parapsychology. “It started when I was a kid. We moved into this house up in Sacramento. From the outside, it looked like any of the other houses on the block. But the place was so haunted. There was ghostly activity almost daily. We all started having experiences from the start.”

“Wow. What kind of things happened? If you don’t mind me asking?”

“No, not at all. It all started out pretty mild. We would notice that things would be moved around the house from where we set them down. A light would be on when we knew we turned it off. We would find doors open when we knew we shut them. But it started to escalate quickly. We all began having nightmares. We would be touched by something that we couldn’t